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RED Epic camera - six times the resolution of HD video

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Re: RED Epic camera - six times the resolution of HD video

#21

Post by Entlin »

sandofsky wrote: post #17

I can't speak for this model. However, in the past, the problem with the RED has been the rolling shutter, the same problem you find in DSLR's. Instead of capturing full frames, it's scanning from top to bottom at 24fps. It's fine for static shots, but as you introduce motion, or fast moving subjects, you get a "jelly" effect. I have a friend who does highend visual effects. In his experience, the RED also isn't suit…

The rolling shutter artifacts are present, yes, but it's in the range of a movie camera. Movie cameras also have some slight jelly in fast pans, something not many people are aware of.

"measured the mysterium (RED ONE) at 9ms, the X (EPIC) at 5ms, and film at 4ms. All of them substantially faster than other sensors which can be in the 20's."

http://reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?42240

"The mechanical shutter "wipes" across the film in a similar way to how a CMOS sensor is read. The trick to CMOS is getting the read-reset time similar to the mechanical shutter. EPIC does that. (...) there is skew in a film camera with a mechanical shutter, one of the many reasons film has "character"."

http://reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?55397-General-Questi...

Re: RED Epic camera - six times the resolution of HD video

#22

Post by tintin »

Can anyone explain the use of such high resolutions? I know it could be nice to crop some parts of the movie and still have a nice set of pixels. But in reality you will just shoot the scene again or leave it out. Nowadays everybody is shooting millions of pixels but I never saw someone who used a cropped versions professionally.

Re: RED Epic camera - six times the resolution of HD video

#23

Post by bgentry »

RED has been driving some tremendous innovation in this space. Their cameras are an order of magnitude cheaper than anything remotely comparable, and they've built the entire ecosystem around standard video editing software (Final Cut Pro, Adobe Premiere, etc.) making this kind of technology accessible to a whole new market of amateur and non-feature filmmakers for whom it was previously out of reach.

They are a fascinating company born out of Jim Jannard's passion. The only reason they exist is because the industry dinosaurs had been happy to eschew innovation in favor of consistent and sustained profit models. Jannard's only goal is to build the camera that the competitors told him he couldn't have.

Re: RED Epic camera - six times the resolution of HD video

#24

Post by ansgri »

alexqgb wrote: post #18
mey wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am a little surprised that digital filming isn't hitting it's stride when photographers have taken to the digital transition. Not sure if the celluloid comment is only in reference RED or in reference to digital film in general. I see parallels to audiophile type comments regarding analog v digital.

Given the exponentially lower amount of data handled by still cameras, it was much easier for them to eclipse 35mm film in terms of quality. Keep in mind that even 'burst mode' on a high-end DSLR only runs at 3-5 frames per second (not 30), and still requires a few seconds between bursts to process and write to disk. Film not only shoots at 24 frames per second (or more), but the final picture has to play on a screen…

It's not exponential—quadratic at most. With exponential factors cinema wouldn't be possible until quantum computers ^)

Re: RED Epic camera - six times the resolution of HD video

#25

Post by anigbrowl »

baddox wrote: post #13
npalli wrote: post #3

Werner Herzog was apparently not impressed http://www.dgaquarterly.org/BACKISSUES/Winter2010/DGAIntervi... Q: What about shooting digitally? A: We used the RED camera for My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done. It's an immature camera created by computer people who do not have a sensibility or understanding for the value of high-precision mechanics, which has a 200-year history. It's terrible: Whenever you have to reboot…

I would have thought that film cameras would have pretty slow and tedious start up and maintenance times too. Is that not the case? Either way, documentary work is a lot different than scripted film making. It sounds like the RED camera would have obviously been a poor choice for his documentary.

Not really. A film camera needs a lot of setup but once you've got it built each morning then switching in a new battery or film magazine takes about a minute, startup is a couple of seconds. In some contexts, a mechanical setup can be more robust and efficient. For that particular film, using a RED would have been like using a Ferrari to do the job of a pickup truck.

Re: RED Epic camera - six times the resolution of HD video

#26

Post by Keyframe »

sandofsky wrote: post #17

I can't speak for this model. However, in the past, the problem with the RED has been the rolling shutter, the same problem you find in DSLR's. Instead of capturing full frames, it's scanning from top to bottom at 24fps. It's fine for static shots, but as you introduce motion, or fast moving subjects, you get a "jelly" effect. I have a friend who does highend visual effects. In his experience, the RED also isn't suit…

Huh? http://www.red.com/experience From my experience with RED, foundry's rolling shutter gets rid of the errors quite easily http://www.thefoundry.co.uk/products/rollingshutter/

and everything I've ran through flame or smoke that was shot on key with red had no problem (related to camera).

REDs are a great tool. And cheap. ARRI Alexa is better, from my experience, but it comes with a premium.. and panavision you can rent only, of course. TBH, camera is the least important factor in shooting a feature/commercials quality look, as long as it's not a DSLR (no matter what popular belief is among prosumers). If you get cooke S4 lenses or other high quality lenses onto RED, Alexa or any other similar camera, you won't notice much of a difference, and each prime lens costs as much as camera alone.

Re: RED Epic camera - six times the resolution of HD video

#27

Post by Keyframe »

mey wrote: post #5
npalli wrote: post #3

Werner Herzog was apparently not impressed http://www.dgaquarterly.org/BACKISSUES/Winter2010/DGAIntervi... Q: What about shooting digitally? A: We used the RED camera for My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done. It's an immature camera created by computer people who do not have a sensibility or understanding for the value of high-precision mechanics, which has a 200-year history. It's terrible: Whenever you have to reboot…

I am a little surprised that digital filming isn't hitting it's stride when photographers have taken to the digital transition. Not sure if the celluloid comment is only in reference RED or in reference to digital film in general. I see parallels to audiophile type comments regarding analog v digital.

Yeah, there is a certain flare of 'it feels organic' hipster thinking going on... but there is another thing to it, you might not be aware of.

When shooting on film, DOPs and directors go to a telecine facility or a film lab where they wait for their stock to get scanned and then grade it live with an operator... I suspect most of the 'i shoot only on film' directors and DOPs are actually shooting on film because of they way they are used to work in grading/DI process with a certain operator or a few of them... it's that process that they are comfortable with and don't wish to abandon.

sure, there is digital grading, and it's done - but with film it's more of a ritual, where with digital footage it's more like sitting in a comping booth... I don't know how to explain it otherwise, it's a big deal to DOPs and directors (especially directors on commercials, not so much on features).

Re: RED Epic camera - six times the resolution of HD video

#29

Post by eftpotrm »

alexqgb wrote: post #18
mey wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am a little surprised that digital filming isn't hitting it's stride when photographers have taken to the digital transition. Not sure if the celluloid comment is only in reference RED or in reference to digital film in general. I see parallels to audiophile type comments regarding analog v digital.

Given the exponentially lower amount of data handled by still cameras, it was much easier for them to eclipse 35mm film in terms of quality. Keep in mind that even 'burst mode' on a high-end DSLR only runs at 3-5 frames per second (not 30), and still requires a few seconds between bursts to process and write to disk. Film not only shoots at 24 frames per second (or more), but the final picture has to play on a screen…

Keep in mind that even 'burst mode' on a high-end DSLR only runs at 3-5 frames per second (not 30), and still requires a few seconds between bursts to process and write to disk.

No.

My 4 year old consumer level Nikon D80 will hit 3FPS. Yes, that's with a buffer, but in practice if I turn the JPEG quality down a touch, it'll run for a long time at that rate while pushing out 10MP files. I've no idea what it'd do at even 2K resolution but it'd be fast.

I forget exactly which SLR is the fastest at present but 10+FPS is very doable in a device costing a few thousand on 10-15MP files, far below the price level of a RED One.

Also....

Film not only shoots at 24 frames per second (or more), but the final picture has to play on a screen that is literally two stories high. The scale is unforgiving. Things that would fly on television get suddenly ugly - especially if you're only starting with 1080 lines of resolution.

Toy Story 1 was rendered at 1536x830 and upsampled to 2048x1108 in post production. You really don't need as much resolution as you think.

Re: RED Epic camera - six times the resolution of HD video

#30

Post by nitrogen »

mprovost wrote: post #20
alexqgb wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given the exponentially lower amount of data handled by still cameras, it was much easier for them to eclipse 35mm film in terms of quality. Keep in mind that even 'burst mode' on a high-end DSLR only runs at 3-5 frames per second (not 30), and still requires a few seconds between bursts to process and write to disk. Film not only shoots at 24 frames per second (or more), but the final picture has to play on a screen…

Resolution on the big screen isn't such a big deal - Avatar was only HD (1080). Sure 2K looks better but people weren't noticing the resolution. Increasing the frame rate has a bigger impact than increasing the resolution.

Minor nitpick: "2K" is actually very close to 1080p: 2048x1080 vs 1920x1080.
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